The Wii U was certainly not the most successful console Nintendo’s ever released, and while some may fondly remember it in 2023, at least one person actually bought a brand new Wii U from a store as if it was 2013 all over again.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Launched in 2012, the Wii U was Nintendo’s follow up to its massively popular Wii console. While the Wii would go on to become one of the best-selling video game consoles of all time, things went much differently for the Wii U and its tablet controller. The console never came close to selling as well as the Wii, and by 2017 Nintendo had moved on to the Switch, which would go on to outstrip the Wii U’s lifetime sales in its first year. But we can now add one more Wii U sale to its total tally.
This odd stat comes from Mat Piscatella, executive director at Circana (formerly NPD) who posted on Twitter (X? Whatever) that one (1) new Wii U was sold in the United States in September. According to Piscatella, this is the first time a new Wii U has been sold in the U.S. since May 2022. Which is also very strange, now that I think about it.For those unaware, Circana tracks “individual store level sales data” to keep tabs on what people are buying and selling. They then sell that data to folks who care. What that also means is that this Wii U wasn’t a used one at GameStop or something like that. This was a “new,” sealed Wii U console that was finally sold a decade after launch.
How did this happen? We don’t know specifically, but as folks who have worked retail at big chains have explained in the comments below Piscatella’s tweet, this isn’t that uncommon. Speaking to some folks I know who have worked at stores like Walmart and Target, old shit can get buried in the back. Or maybe a Wii U had been sitting for the last decade on a store shelf in, like, Georgia or Montana and finally, after a decade, someone decided to buy it and play some Super Mario 3D World. I hope they enjoy it!
Also, Piscatella added that three new PS Vitas were purchased in November 2021. I’m glad these forgotten consoles, sealed up in boxes and buried in storerooms or lost inside decrepit Best Buys, are finding homes. Brings a tear to my eye.
Detective Pikachu Returns is out on Switch today, October 6, and as someone who considers the original 2016 3DS game to be one of my favorite things Pokémon has ever done, I’m stoked. But Nintendo’s adventure game sequel exists in a weird place, because the 2019 live-action Detective Pikachu movie may have already wrapped up its story.
HD-2D, The Unique Retro-Inspired Art Style, Took Off In 2022
While the circumstances are a bit different, the Detective Pikachu movie does the whole “Game of Thrones” thing of ending a story that wasn’t quite complete in the source material. Did its ending end up spoiling the video game sequel that wouldn’t launch for another four years? As I play Detective Pikachu Returns, I assume I probably know what’s going to happen at the end. However, I’m not totally sure, because the game has a cute scene that references the movie and affirms that the game is doing its “own thing.”
The scene in question takes place maybe 30 minutes in. Protagonist Tim Goodman is speaking with his mother Irene and sister Sophia about his detective adventures alongside the titular Detective Pikachu. Apparently, the mystery-solving duo has become so well-renowned for their work that they’ve made a movie about the first game’s case. Sophia says she thought the movie was “pretty good,” but laments that she and her mom don’t show up in it at all. Tim says he has “no idea, but movies usually do their own thing, don’t they?”
2019’s Detective Pikachu movie follows a lot of the same plot beats as the 3DS game it was based on, such as Tim and Pikachu being able to talk to each other while they search for Tim’s dad Harry. But Irene and Sophia don’t appear in the movie at all; Sophia doesn’t even seem to exist in the film’s continuity. Her now being upset about that in Detective Pikachu Returns, and Tim’s nonchalant response, is a cute meta reference to the real movie and the liberties it took with the source material.
Tim’s mother, specifically, is very different in this new game, because she was long dead in the film’s chronology. Harry grew distant after Tim’s mother’s death, leading to tension between the two. But she is alive and well in Detective Pikachu Returns. Does that mean she gets a happy ending now? To be determined.
Whatever happens, the most comforting thing I’ve experienced playing Detective Pikachu Returns is its repeated insistence that your mystery-solving electric mouse isn’t a cop in the games; in fact, they’re actually pretty at odds with Ryme City law enforcement so far. We stan a private investigator vigilante king.
I love racing games, but I’m not really a racing game kind of guy. What that means is I enjoy getting beyond the wheel of a flashy car, whether it’s a half-million-dollar Ferrari or a souped-up Subaru hatchback, and trying to hug turns while grazing past the competition. What I don’t particularly care about is getting…
Sony is preparing to sell a Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 bundle that will include a digital download for the game, presumably at a discount, as it ramps up plans to try and sell a record-breaking 25 million consoles this year. The company is already giving away free copies of older games to any players who activate a new PS5 in the next few weeks.
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The newSpider-Man 2 PS5 bundle was teased in an October 2 tweet. Sony confirmed to Kotaku it will be $560, the same as last year’s God of War Ragnarök PS5 bundle, saving new owners $10. The Spider-Man 2 version ships on October 20 alongside the launch of the game. Pre-orders aren’t yet live.
The sequel to the 2018 action adventure by Insomniac Games, Spider-Man 2 sees Peter Parker and Miles Morales team up together, complimenting one another’s abilities and trading off on the fly as they take on the hunter Kraven and the alien symbiote Venom. It’s one of the only first-party blockbusters that is a PS5 exclusive so far this console generation.
Sony revealed its intention to sell 25 million new PS5s this fiscal year back in April, telling investors in August it was prepared to take the “necessary measures” to make that happen. So far, that’s included discounting the old God of War Ragnarök bundle by an additional $50, and even giving away free downloads for critically acclaimed games like Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 1. This “upgrade” promotion runs until 3:00 a.m. ET on October 21, meaning anyone who buys the Spider-Man 2 bundle could potentially get an additional game at no extra cost.
The new bundle is seperate from the special edition console that includes red and black face plates for the PS5. That went for $600 and is already sold out. Fortunately, Sony won’t be running out of Spider-Man 2 codes when it comes to the regular bundle.
Update 10/2/2023 5:05 p.m. ET: Sony confirmed the price in an email.
Call of Duty’s collaborations this year have cast a wide net, ranging from putting rapper Nicki Minaj in as a playable character to adding cosmetics that are based on the Diablo series. Next month, the series is leaning into all things spooky and hellish, and that includes a tribute to Doom, the landmark 1993 first-person shooter. The Doom bundle, available on October 9 for Warzone and Modern Warfare II, includes a shotgun and chainsaw stylized to look like they did in the original game, and the visual effect is pretty cool.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate
If you equip the gun or melee weapon, your character wields it like the space marine hero of the original game did, complete with a lower framerate that looks pretty distinct compared to the rest of Warzone. It’s nostalgic for fans of the original Doom, but it doesn’t seem to actually get in the way of the functionality of the shotgun or chainsaw, even when the game runs at 60FPS. Your character’s animations stutter a little bit when using either weapon, but it’s a pretty faithful recreation of how Doom looked 30 years ago. It rules.
The weapons are definitely the standout, but the Doom bundle comes with a few other homages to the series, as well. The full bundle includes the following:
DOOM Weapon Charm
Cacodemon & Slayer Stickers
DOOM Loading Screen
Super Shotgun Weapon Blueprint
Chainsaw Melee Blueprint
Doomguy Gunscreen
Call of Duty isn’t the only game paying tribute to the original Doom these days. Cyberpunk 2077added a mini-game in the Phantom Liberty expansion based on shooters of the time starring Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Silverhand. Even with so many games paying tribute to the 1993 classic, it’s always a good idea to revisit the OG whenever you can, as it’s pretty foundational to the first-person shooter genre. If you do decide to play it, though, maybe play it on something simple like a PC or console, rather than one of the weirder devices people have ported the game to over the years. Like a tractor or potato-powered calculator.
After years of pulling the strings from behind the scenes, GameStop chairman and billionaire Chewy founder Ryan Cohen appointed himself CEO of the ailing video game store on Thursday. His first email to staff, obtained by Kotaku, called for “extreme frugality” and said “time wasters” would not be tolerated as the meme stock company fights to survive.
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“It is not sustainable for GameStop to operate a money losing business,” Cohen, who first joined the board of directors back in 2021, told corporate employees. Despite effectively being in charge of the retailer for a couple years now, engineering short-lived pushes into better online deliveries, NFTs, and selling things like gamer chairs and TVs, GameStop has remained mostly unprofitable during his reign.
A recent exodus among the c-suite, including Cohen’s firing of his own hand-picked CEO, Matt Furlong earlier this year, has left the company seemingly more adrift than ever. GameStop initiated several waves of layoffs in 2022, and has continued to decimate staffing levels at individual stores, even though its meme stock windfall means it still has roughly $1 billion in cash reserves.
Cohen’s first email to employees after making himself boss struck a grim and threatening tone. “Every expense at the company must be scrutinized under a microscope and all waste eliminated,” he wrote. “The company has no use for delegators and money wasters. I expect everyone to treat company money like their own and lead by example.”
It’s not clear what’s left to cut at the company, however. The core of GameStop’s troubles remains an ongoing shift from physical game sales to digital downloads. A massive Xbox leak earlier this month suggested Microsoft might soon be phasing out disc drives for its own consoles altogether. Funko Pop! and other collectible merchandise has taken over more and more of the chain’s retail shelves, but has so far been unable to make up for the losses from fewer sales of used games.
Here’s Cohen’s full email to GameStop employees:
I will be straight to the point.
It is not sustainable for GameStop to operate a money losing business. The mission is to operate hyper efficiently and profitably. Our expense structure must allow us to endure any adverse scenario. Whether it’s a difficult economy or revenue deceleration from shrinking software, we must be profitable. Our job is to make sure GameStop is here for decades to come. Extreme frugality is required. Every expense at the company must be scrutinized under a microscope and all waste eliminated. The company has no use for delegators and money wasters. I expect everyone to treat company money like their own and lead by example.
Prospering in retail means survival. If we survive, we stay in the game. Survival is avoiding the deadly sins that often lead retailers to self-destruct. This is usually a result of the following – buying bad inventory, using leverage, and running expenses too high. By avoiding these self-inflicted mistakes and focusing on the basics, GameStop can be here for a long time.
I expect everyone to roll up their sleeves and work hard. I’m not getting paid, so I’m either going down with the ship or turning the company around. I much prefer the latter.
GameStop has appointed Chewy founder Ryan Cohen as its CEO in a bid to overhaul its ailing business.
The billionaire is the video game retailer’s largest individual investor and chairman of its board. His appointment comes just months after GameStop executives ousted their former CEO Matthew Furlong, who joined the retailer’s executive ranks to oversee its turnaround two years ago.
GameStop, whose meme stock generated buzz on Wall Street in 2021, has struggled with poor sales and executive turnover as video game streaming and digital game downloads eat at its profits. The mostly brick-and-mortar chain also faces competition from online retailers, such as Amazon.
At least one analyst expressed skepticism the new CEO would be able to cope with the headwinds facing the money-losing company, whose stock has plunged 38% in the past year and whose revenue has tumbled by one-third since 2014.
“Mr. Cohen has no significant experience managing a physical retailer,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at investment firm Wedbush Securities, said Thursday in a research note. Cohen’s efforts to juggle multiple roles at GameStop, despite his lack of experience, comes at a time when the company “lack[s]…clear direction.”
Pachter added, “With no path to a turnaround and the inevitable migration of physical software sales to digital downloads, we think Mr. Cohen’s appointment ensures GameStop’s demise.”
Cohen will retain his position on GameStop’s board, in addition to taking on the new role, the company said in a statement. The billionaire will not receive compensation for serving as the company’s president, CEO and chairman, the statement said.
In 2021, GameStop’s shares soared more than 1,000% in two weeks after a band of smaller-pocketed investors, egged on by a Reddit community called WallStreetBets, made plans to boost its stock.
GameStop’s surge was followed by the rise of other downtrodden stocks at the time, laying bare the power wielded by a new generation of investors, armed with apps on their phones that make trading fun. During the run-up of GameStop’s price, some people wrote on social media platforms that participating in the Reddit-fueled rallies was their chance to stick it to hedge funds.
GameStop’s meme stock story is so intriguing that a movie was created about it, called “Dumb Money.”
Shares of GameStop fell 1% in early afternoon trading.
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Unlike Panam, Judy, and Kerry, River is the one companion you have to go out of your way to meet. Finding the Night City cop and helping him sort through a local mystery that weaves in and out of his family life makes for one of the most interesting breaks in Cyberpunk 2077’s usual action. Expect a little combat and chatter, but also light adventure game mechanics and some pretty horrifying Night City lore.
This questline does, however, unmask Cyberpunk 2077’s weird, inconsistent framing of cops and law enforcement, even weaponizing the ACAB saying in a particularly tacky lift that I’m not wild about. But if nothing else, these quests offer, for your inspection, a layer of the game’s inherent worldview that’s worth examining and dissecting.
Cyberpunk 2077 players have discovered a new arcade cab hidden in an abandoned church just outside Night City. This new arcade machine, added as part of Cyberpunk 2077’s free 2.0 update, lets you play a Doom-like retro shooter starring Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate
Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update and its massive Phantom Liberty expansion have added a lot of new content and features to the already-huge first-person RPG. But who cares about that stuff? (Editor’s note: A lot of people, actually.) Personally, I’m more excited to see that even in the horrible dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077 people are still making and playing Doom clones. Some things never change, I guess.
To play this new arcade machine, you’ll need to go into the badlands outside Night City and head south to find a lone, abandoned church just north of a protein farm, which is also a fast-travel point. So if you’ve already unlocked the farm for fast travel, feel free to zip over to save yourself a drive into the badlands.
Regardless of how you get there, enter the church, and on the right you’ll find an Arasaka Tower 3D playable arcade machine.
Arasaka Tower 3D is very clearly an homage to classic id Software shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. You play long-dead rockerboy Johnny Silverhand fresh off his historic bombing of one of the world’s most powerful megacorps’ headquarters as he tries to escape the tower, blasting numerous guards as he ambles—surprisingly slowly—toward freedom. Aside from the lack of speed the gameplay looks surprisingly retro, including the fact that you can’t look up or down, as was the case in many classic ‘90s shooters. The full game is about 10 minutes long or so and includes five levels complete with secret doors.
Do you think people in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe have modded Arasaka Tower 3D to death and got it running on ATMs and other weird devices, like how Doom is playable on just about anything in our world today? I hope so. I hope some nerds have made it fully open-source at this point and created whole new levels for it, too.
I guess once you’re done playing Araska Tower 3D you can go and play the rest of Cyberpunk 2077, including the new expansion. I hear it’s like Doom but you can look up and down now. Wild stuff!
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion has its own self-contained conclusion, but depending on your choices throughout the story, you can unlock an entirely new ending for the base game, too. You just have to make certain choices to get it.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate
If you’re worried about missing the ending but don’t want to outright spoil the story trying to unlock it, good news: We’re going to tell you which dialogue choices to make without getting too into concrete details about what’s going on in Phantom Liberty. We’ll show images of critical points and attempt to vaguely describe any decisions you have to make, but won’t describe the story itself. If that arrangement sounds good and you want some guidance on reaching Cyberpunk 2077’s new conclusion, read on. If you’re worried about even no-context references to certain events, turn back.
Phantom Liberty has a major diverging point in the quest Firestarter. Your decision here will put you on one of two routes that are drastically distinct from one another and reveal different things about its new characters. You can still access Cyberpunk 2077’s new ending from either of these routes, but you will have to make certain decisions within them to reach it. Once you see one route through to the end, it’s really worth loading up an old save to start a fresh run to try the other, too, as this will give you the greatest understanding of Phantom Liberty’s story.
All that being said, the branching point is well-signposted, and you’ll know it’s coming before you get there. The decision that puts you on one Phantom Liberty route or another happens in this scene:
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku
Here, you’ll get two dialogue options that each correspond to one of two actions. Either route can unlock the new ending, but depending on your subsequent choices, you might lose out on that ending entirely. And hey, maybe there’s some good role-playing material to work with by not pursuing it. But assuming you want to at least see the ending and decide if you want to keep it as your canon conclusion, read on for what you have to do in each route.
To keep things as spoiler-free as we can, we’ll just label each route by V’s dialogue option as opposed to the actual action that takes place.
“One more second…”
This route is much more straightforward in how to unlock the new ending. Without divulging specifics, the only thing you have to do in this route to unlock the new ending is ensure that Songbird lives. There’s a specific decision point near the end of this route that will determine the netrunner’s fate, and as long as she survives, you will be able to see the new ending.
“I’m with you.”
Conversely, it’s a bit trickier to unlock the new ending in this route, and it’s especially difficult to explain how to unlock it without spoilers. But if you go with this decision, you’ll have to play through the expansion’s final quest and essentially turn heel at the very end. Idris Elba’s character Solomon Reed will engage you in conversation after a climactic battle, and you have to agree to a deal he proposes.
Both these routes, regardless of the decisions you make within them, will bring you to Phantom Liberty’s credits sequence, after which you’ll be put back into the open world. But if you made the specific decisions within either route that unlock the new conclusion, wait for Reed to contact you, meet up with him, then follow the quest objectives to see the new ending. This means if you follow either of these paths, you will end your Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough with the new ending. That also means you’re reaching a point of no return and the game’s final credits will roll.
If you don’t make the Phantom Liberty choices that unlock the new ending, you’ll be put back onto the base game’s main path and will have to follow it through to one of the original endings.
What happens if I unlock Phantom Liberty’s new ending before finishing Cyberpunk 2077?
Phantom Liberty’s new ending is different from the other endings in Cyberpunk 2077, as it will essentially wipe the rest of the game off the table so you can see its new conclusion. This is part of why I recommend finishing Cyberpunk 2077 with one of its original endings before seeing Phantom Liberty’s, because taking the new Phantom Liberty ending will end your playthrough before you’ve experienced large swaths of the main game. Plus, the new ending is much more centered on the expansion’s characters than it is the bulk of 2077’s cast, so it definitely has a weird place in the continuity.
If you do play through Phantom Liberty before finishing Cyberpunk 2077, especially the companion quests (Kerry, Judy, Panam, River), you will miss out on some character beats in the new finale. Thus I also recommend at least seeing their storylines through before you head into Phantom Liberty’s finale.
Although early reviews claimed Starfield was Bethesda Game Studios’ most polished game to date, the open-space RPG still suffers from some of the strange, sometimes amusing, occasionally very helpful sorts of bugs and glitches the studio’s work is often known for. Maybe the most mind-boggling bug yet, however, is one that sees players being followed across space, not just by asteroids and other such objects, but even by forests and whole-ass cities.
Out now for Windows PC and Xbox consoles, Starfield is a game about exploring the farthest reaches of the black sea above us. You’ll join a troupe of space surveyors—as well as several other major and minor factions—to scour the cosmos looking for knowledge, loot, and power. Some helpful if annoying companions can accompany you on the voyage, which is nice. Traveling space can be lonely sometimes. But depending on how busted Starfield decides to be during your playthrough, you may find yourself yearning for that loneliness.
Stalkers are lurking in Starfield’s space
Across the game’s subreddit are posts from folks claiming that the most random of space objects are stalking them throughout the galaxy. On September 15, for example, redditor ReverendRoo posted nine images of an asteroid that had followed them “for the past 30 hours” like a pet. Similarly, on September 20, user Ultimastar shared four images on r/Starfield of an asteroid that “randomly attended my wedding” after 100 hours of gameplay. User Royal_Schedule4209 took to Reddit on September 22 to share an image of “a whole forest” that’s somehow been trailing their spaceship. Probably the wildest example of the bug, however, was shared on September 21 by redditor Punidue, who posted an image of “the whole New Atlantis” city creeping on them in space. Yikes.
That’s not all the things that’ve been breathing down the fuel tanks of Starfield players. One redditor claimed to have been followed by a part of a cave, while a separate commenter on user Xthekilr0y’s post about the asteroid following bug said they’re being chased by four pet rocks after mining asteroids. According to a few comments I’ve seen across multiple posts, the bug is seemingly permanent even if you reboot the game. The only way to get rid of them, at least for right now, is to either use console commands on PC or load a previous save. Regardless, this might be the most difficult dogfight you’ll ever find yourself in.
Kotaku reached out to Bethesda Games Studios for comment.
The world is big, but space is bigger. It’s nice having friends to help the years spent gravjumping from system to system speed by. I’m just not sure these space objects are the besties we want hopping galaxies with us. They’re all sus.
Vendors are a crucial component of Starfield, as you’ll need to make use of the RPG’s merchants in order to get better gear, obtain necessary parts to fix a damaged ship, buy healing items, and sell off all your contraband to earn enough credits to eventually buy that house in Akila City. The bars and restaurants in Starfield are also vendors, as the items you can buy from there are considered “aid” in that they’ll restore a little health or give you temporary buffs.
But we don’t just go into Starfield’s bars and restaurants to make use of their functionality—we go there to hang out. Video game bars are fantastic little lore dumps, lovingly detailed spaces that really make the game world in which they’re set feel lived-in and real. There’s nothing quite like walking into Mass Effect2’s Afterlife for the first time, or settling down for a game of Gwent in The Witcher 3’s Golden Sturgeon, to make it feel like you really are your character, and you really are jonesing for a drink.
And like other Bethesda RPGs, Starfield has its fair share of watering holes decorated with interesting objects and frequented by colorful characters (you could even call it Barfield, there’s so many). We ranked all the ones we could find, from worst to best, based on decor, menu, and overall vibes. Which Starfield bar would we most like to drink at? Read on to find out.
Gillespie’s latest film sees Paul Dano and Seth Rogen battle it out over GameStop stock in a tale inspired by the real-life tug-of-war between independent retail investors on Reddit and giants on Wall Street.
When hedge fund managers like Gabe Plotkin (Rogen) bet billions against the company’s brick-and-mortar business, Keith Gill (Dano) wages a war that sees stocks surge.
But Gillespie’s Dumb Money is anything but dumb — and its sharp humour is guaranteed to get a laugh out of even the most financially illiterate. Through titan acting performances, memes and a killer soundtrack, Dumb Money takes audiences on a laugh-out-loud funny, bittersweet journey of rags to riches.
Global News’ Sarah Do Couto sat down with the director at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about pop culture, the internet and how regular people can create real, tangible change.
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(You can watch the full interview with Craig Gillespie, top.)
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‘Dumb Money’ will be released in theatres across Canada on Sept. 22, 2023.
The next batch of cross-over operators was just announced for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone, and it includes none other than Diablo IV’s Succubi queen Lilith and fallen archangel Inarius. Plus a bunch of other horror stars like Spawn and Evil Dead’s Ash Williams. No doubt it will be another bloodbath.
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Activision revealed the season 6 operators on Thursday alongside teases for other horror-themed content, including the return of The Haunting event in October. The seasonal update goes live on Septmebr 27 and will even include a Doom-themed bundle complete with a chainsaw. Al Simmons will be one of the new operators alongside a host of Spawn-related skins, including a couple for the superhero himself as well as Creepy Clown and Violator.
Lilith, Diablo IV’s main antagonist, and Inarius, the hooded asshole, will be separate purchases added to the shop, joined by Skeletor (He-Man), Ash Williams (Evil Dead 2), and Alucard (Hellsing). I can’t wait to see how they play in the Call of Duty sandbox alongside rapper Nicki Minaj, NBA star Kevin Durant, and the Burger King guy. The upcoming event should make the time go a little faster until Modern Warfare 3drops on November 10.
For those who might not be aware, Call of Duty has been going fullblown Fortnite for quite a while now, mixing things up with wild cross-overs from across the pop culture landscape. In July it was characters from Amazon Prime superhero dramedy, The Boys, with Temp V abilities like Homelander’s red eye lasers torching every player in sight.
Some have bemoaned the silliness of it all for undermining the “very-serious” war shooter. Others enjoy the changing party costumes, if not always the seasonal grinds and prices that come with them. The weapons at least, like the Doom bundle, will carry over into Modern Warfare 3.
A giant batch of new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth interviews and previews just dropped to kickoff Tokyo Game Show 2023 and the sequel is sounding more promising than ever. Here’s everything we’re learning from Square Enix’s latest marketing bonanza around the upcoming timed PlayStation 5 exclusive.
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The new round of hands-on impressions come from two demos, one taking place during the Nibelheim incident flashback that sees Cloud fighting alongside Sephiroth, and another showing off open-world exploration around the outskirts of Junon, the sea-side military city with a giant gun mounted on it. Writers at IGN, Polygon, GameSpot, andmore came away impressed by how the sequel expands on Final Fantasy VII Remake’s world and mechanics, though many are still eager to find out more about how Rebirth will deviate from the original 1997 PlayStation game’s story.
“As with the previous game, we have strived for the right balance between old and new scenes in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but we also tried to take on more new challenges than we did in Final Fantasy VII Remake with some of the new scenes,” producer Yoshinori Kitase told the PlayStation Blog last week. “I am confident these new scenes will be wildly enjoyable for fans and newcomers alike.” Time will tell. For now, here are a bunch of interesting new details going around in today’s previews.
At 150GB, Rebirth is huge, but you won’t be swapping between two discs
Image: Square Enix
Director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed to Game Informer that the total size of the game on PS5 is 150GB, with 100GB on the first disc and 50GB on the second. Unlike the PS1 version, however, players won’t be swapping discs midway through. Instead, they’ll download the whole thing at once and then be able to play the entire game with either disc inserted.
The game ends after the Forgotten City
Image: Square Enix
Creative director Tetsuya Nomura also confirmed to Game Informer that Rebirth will go up to and include the end of the Forgotten Capital, known as the City of Ancients in the original game. That’s where Aerith dies in the 1997 version, but given how the remake trilogy is messing with the canon, anything could happen this time around.
You can go on monster hunts
Image: Square Enix
Like Final Fantasy XII, XV, and XVI, Rebirth will have special enemy hunts out in the sequel’s much more expansive, semi-open world. According to Polygon, players will encounter extra difficult monster variants while exploring that can be defeated in specific ways to earn extra rewards. Hopefully the game uses this to showcase some deep cuts from Final Fantasy VII’s bestiary.
Synergy Skills and Abilities are like combo techniques from Chrono Trigger
Image: Square Enix
Revealed in the most recent State of Play trailer, party members this time around will have an extra slate of attacks called Synergy Skills. These open up while blocking and allow multiple characters to work together, like Cloud knocking Barrett’s gun fire into nearby enemies. Synergy Abilities are even stronger, andGameSpot likens them to Chrono Trigger’s combo techniques. They basically combine multiple characters’ limit breaks into an extra powerful finisher.
There’s crafting
Image: Square Enix
Fortunately, it doesn’t look too menacing. Players can pick up random materials while out in the world and use them to make phoenix downs and other recovery items. It’s not clear how extensive the system will be, but it probably beats running back to town when you run out of potions.
Sephiroth is playable
Image: Square Enix
Players could command Sephiroth for a short bit during the original game’s Nibelheim flashback, and the new demos confirm that’s the case in Rebirth as well. There’s apparently even an extended sequence where he and Cloud team up to fight through enemy hordes, with players able to control the super SOLDIER as he unleashes hell with his giant Masamune blade.
Vincent is not, but he’ll still fight with you
Image: Square Enix
Teased during the latest trailer, IGN confirms the former Turk turned shapeshifting gunslinger can’t be controlled but he’ll still accompany players in the late part of the game as Red XIII did near the end of Remake. Nomura hinted to Game Informer that Vincent may join the player’s party for real by the final game in the trilogy.
Nobody’s seen Cid yet
Image: Square Enix
The cigarette-smoking, curse-spewing pilot was absent from the latest round of demos. That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the game at all. In the 1997 version’s timeline, Cid joins the crew long before they make it to the City of Ancients. Rebirth has a ton of ground to cover, however. Either Cid is being held back for a later reveal or his content has been moved to a later part of the trilogy’s story.
Cloud can swim
Players can get some laps in around Junon if they want, the demos confirmed. Whether there will be anything to discover or fight in the water remains to be seen. Will the spikey-haired punk get an alternate speedo costume? He’d better.
The Junon dolphin is back
Swimming will also be crucial for one of the most memorable scenes from the early part of Final Fantasy VII: riding a dolphin to the upper layer of the Junon military base. Simply called Mr. Dolphin in the original, he looks great in 4K and his return shows Square Enix isn’t shying away from the 1997 version’s absurd mini-games.
Here’s Red XIII riding a chocobo
I can’t believe this is real.
You can pet the baby chocobo chicks
Chocobo breeding returns in Rebirth, complete with blue, green, and golden chocobos. But there are also chocobo chicks, they are adorable, and Cloud can pet them. It’s a beautiful Kodak moment before he hauls them off to the Gold Saucer racetrack.
Zack will get an entire episode to himself
Image: Square Enix
Cloud’s First Class SOLDIER friend had a very minor role in the 1997 game but it expanded significantly in subsequent adaptations and spin-offs, most notably Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Kitase told IGN that the black-haired swordsman will be getting a lot more facetime in Rebirth. “There will be a new episode with Zack, that will contain even more of him than the Remake,” he said. “I’m not able to say much more than this as I would like for players to play and experience this with it in their own hands.”
Next week sees the long-awaited launch of Phantom Liberty, CD Projekt Red’s one and only expansion for the controversial and divisive Cyberpunk 2077. If you’ve got an existing save game, you can jump into the expansion as long as you’ve complete the main game’s Voodoo Boys questline.
Phantom Liberty Is Undoing One Key Thing That Cyberpunk Got Right
But just because Phantom Liberty’s new, story-driven missions become accessible then doesn’t necessarily mean you should play them right away. The best time to jump into Phantom Liberty is a bit more complicated, and based on how you’re coming into Cyberpunk 2077 years after its initial launch. But no matter what your existing relationship with the game, here’s a breakdown of how and when to dive into this spy thriller of an expansion.
You should play through all of Cyberpunk 2077 before Phantom Liberty
I tackled Phantom Liberty with a near-completionist save. I’d already gotten Cyberpunk 2077’s original ending, made my peace with it, and was able to examine the expansion through the lens of it being a new, standalone story that was complementary to the main quest rather than a part of it. I think this is the ideal way to play through the new expansion for a few reasons, the biggest being that it helps you contextualize Phantom Liberty’s story within the larger narrative of Cyberpunk 2077.
Without getting into spoilers, Phantom Liberty adds a new ending to Cyberpunk 2077, and while it ties into V and Johnny Silverhand’s story, the new conclusion takes a lot of characters, plotlines, and events off the board to make it happen. You won’t see a lot of stories wrap up properly if you opt for Phantom Liberty’s new ending, and if you don’t have the broader understanding of how it fits into things, you might feel a little let down by the lack of closure and clarity in those other storylines. The new ending itself is substantial and stands tall as one of the game’s most interesting finales, but it’s best seen and understood in context.
Plus, seeing companion storylines like Kerry’s, Judy’s, Panam’s, and River’s through to the end elevates the new ending, so if you haven’t yet completed those questlines it will lessen the impact of some moments. Kerry specifically doesn’t show up until Act 3, so if you jump into Phantom Liberty as soon as you can, you will miss out on some of the new ending’s most meaningful moments.
Don’t skip to Phantom Liberty when prompted
If you’re jumping back into Cyberpunk 2077 and starting a new playthrough to see Phantom Liberty, it will give you the option to skip straight to the expansion. While that is convenient and probably a fine option for players with minimal investment in Cyberpunk 2077’s storylines, it will make a story decision for you and you won’t have all those established relationships, nice equipment, etc. If you’re really eager to just hop in and see what’s going on the option is there, and I give CDPR credit for thinking of it, but it’s probably not the experience you want for $30 of your hard-earned money.
Friends, the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hype train has left Midgar station and is barreling toward us at a fever pitch in the run-up to the RPG’s PlayStation 5 release date of February 29, 2024. Y’all see that new trailer? If you haven’t, you’ve probably at least heard fans squealing about the first look at Vincent Valentine, Zack not being dead like he’s supposed to be, and several other cool moments. All that’s well and good, but there’s one moment in the trailer we are not talking about enough. And we should be, because the best character in all of Final Fantasy VII is coming back in Rebirth: Andrea Rhodea, the king of the Honeybee Inn.
I Didn’t Play Final Fantasy XVI ‘Right,’ And That’s OK
Andrea is one of the best additions in Final Fantasy VII Remake’s new spin on an old story. He’s the owner and lead dancer of the Honeybee Inn, which was a brothel in the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII. In Remake the Honeybee Inn is a lavish nightclub, complete with extravagant dance routines, stunning costumes based on the titular bug, and a hunky pansexual king running the place.
The changes worked on a few fronts. It made the Honeybee Inn a more memorable touchstone of Cloud and Aerith’s time in the Wall Market rather than a weird, uncomfortable detour tinged with gay panic. Now it’s a celebratory moment about the freedom of expression and breaking down gender norms. The updated scene let Cloud dress in drag without shame and felt like a real queer space in a game that was otherwise willing to assume Cloud was involved with a woman as long as they were in each other’s proximity. Sure, Cloud and Aerith are just passing through, but it was a meaningful moment for Final Fantasy VII’s larger world to show that queer people and places exist.
Even as a person who doesn’t love Final Fantasy VII Remake for a lot of reasons we won’t get into—don’t get me started on my lack of faith in Square to pull off an Evangelion-style meta-commentary after nearly every extended universe it’s done in Final Fantasy has undermined the source material in some way—the Honeybee Inn scene remains an all-time great moment for me in the series. It’s joyful to watch unfold, and Andrea is one of the most captivating characters for as little screentime as he gets.
Given that he’s a side character and pretty tied to a specific location the party is departing at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake, I didn’t think we’d see Andrea again in Rebirth, or the third game that will wrap up this revamped story. But it looks like we’re heading to the Gold Saucer in Rebirth, and Andrea is about to dance his ass off once again.
And look at this king fucking go. He was a charismatic dancer in Remake, even when saddled with a newbie dance partner like Cloud. Whenever I heard a catchy pop song back in 2020 (say, anything from Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica”) images of Andrea and Cloud dancing immediately entered my mind, like an old screensaver or music video. So I’m sure the new choreography he and his crew are working on in Rebirth will stamp itself onto any pop album I listen to in 2024.
Square Enix
I really loved Dion and his gay relationship in Final Fantasy XVI, but because of a few disappointing decisions Square Enix made with the character, I still left that game a bit saddened by its apparent hesitance to showcase his love story with the same confidence as it did his straight counterparts’. Fresh off Remake’s Andrea, an incredibly proud queer man in the Final Fantasy universe, Dion’s treatment felt like two steps forward and one step back. I don’t expect Andrea will play a huge role in Rebirth, but I’m very glad to see he’s back, killing it on the stage, and looking fine as hell in white.
Fighting game reboot Mortal Kombat 1, which got a paid Early Access release September 14, introduces a completely new, single-player board game mode called Invasion. According to a PlayStation blog explaining the mode, the expansive Invasion mode serves as a kind of pinnacle to the 31-year-old series’ history of varied single-player formats. Well, maybe it could have, if only some reviewers didn’t find it so boring.
Unboxing The Baldur’s Gate 3 Collector’s Edition
What is Mortal Kombat 1’s Invasion mode?
Invasion, which becomes accessible after you roll credits on the game’s single-player story mode, is “an evolution,” PlayStation says, of preexisting features like the storefront Krypt from 2002 game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and single-player battle Towers. In it, you protect your reality from invaders by battling them “on board game-like world maps,” PlayStation says, in exchange for rewards like in-game money and cosmetics.
“Anyone can enjoy Invasion,” PlayStation writes, “but longtime fighting game fans […] will probably find a second home here. While the main incentive is scoring unlockables to personalize your favorite fighters, there’s much to enjoy.”
A single-player mode that takes inspiration from board games sounds like it could be quite novel, bringing something fresh and exciting to MK1’s single-player offerings. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman found it overwhelming, saying:
It’s a mishmash of ideas that sound good on paper but, unfortunately, tries to be a few too many things all at once. Almost every invasion “board” is made up of a series of spaces that each have a themed fight assigned to them […]. You move around the board conducting an exhausting grind of clearing repetitive battles against enemies that—at least for the first several hours—don’t put up much of a fight, collecting a slower-than-usual drip of worthwhile rewards, finding keys to unlock gates, and completing challenges like [classic fight interlude] Test Your Might or survival minigames, until you reach the end.
VG247 staff writer Connor Makar agreed in his review, calling the mode “largely unexciting.”
“It has its moments with secret missions and good ‘ol Test Your Might challenges spread around,” he said, “but these perks were countered by modifiers that did more to frustrate than exhilarate. A missile from off-screen may be funny on occasion, but a super-armored katana running at you, over and over again, begins to grate.”
Is there any benefit to MK1 Invasion mode?
Those categorizations might not inspire much confidence in Invasion, but cosmetics fiends should familiarize themselves with it anyway—it’s where MK1’s future seasonal content, which will not involve any microtransactions or a battle pass, can be found.
So you can keep your money; you’ll pay up by enduring potentially sleepy gameplay. But, who knows, you might find Invasions not-so-sleepy. In its review, Bloody Disgusting said Invasions “is a massive improvement over the previous game’s Krypt, feeling less random and cryptic in how to overcome obstacles.”
“With Netherrealm promising to seasonally update the Invasions mode, I can’t wait to see what surprises and themes are in store for us,” said writer Reyna Cervantes.
In any case, Invasions makes sense living in Mortal Kombat 1, a game that wants to strike a clean balance between the decades-old and new. Test it out yourself when the game comes out globally on September 19.
Nexus Mods, one of the largest online repositories of fan-made video game modifications, recently deleted a Starfield mod that removed the game’s built-in option to choose a pronoun for your created character. As you might expect, this removal angered a very toxic portion of players who yelled at Nexus Mods over its choice and threatened to stop using the massive site. But Nexus Mods is sticking with its decision and has a message to angry bigots: We aren’t sad to see you leave.
11 Minutes Of Saturday Morning Cartoon Roguelike Gameplay
Starfield, one of the biggest games of 2023, is also a Bethesda RPG. That means it’s a large open-world game filled with quests and places to explore, but it also has some annoying bugs and frustrating design choices. And as usual, PC-based modders have come to the rescue to help tweak and improve the game. While many of these mods are useful and/or fun, some aren’t as positive, like a mod that removes the ability to choose a pronoun, a small feature in the game that became a viral talking point among toxic losers upset about Starfield being “woke.” However, if you try to download that mod from Nexus Mods today, you won’t find it, because the people running the site didn’t want it around.
In a report from 404Media published Friday, Nexus Mods told the outlet that while it doesn’t see itself as the “police of what people can and cannot mod into (or out of) their games” it does decide which content it wants to host or not host. And Nexus Mods said hosting this pronoun-removal mod was “not for us.”
“It is certainly within our rights not to host content on our platform,” Nexus Mods told 404Media. It also said the mod’s removal wasn’t a “political statement” or the site picking sides in the ongoing culture war. Instead, it said it simply believes in “diversity and inclusion,” adding that the “removal of diversity, while appealing to many, does not promote a positive modding community.”
Nexus Mods isn’t phased by toxic comments
If you’ve been on the internet at all in the last few years, you know what happened next. Lots of angry chuds hopped into forums and social media threads to yell about how this was evil censorship and infringing on their rights. For its part, Nexus Mods doesn’t care about the reaction.
“A reinforcement that this has been the best course of action has been some of the hatred, vitriol, and threats of violence coming from a very, very small minority of the community,” Nexus Mods said. “Frankly, we are not sad to see them go.”
This isn’t the first time the popular modding site has upset toxic assholes. In 2022, Nexus took similar action against a mod for Spider-Man Remastered that removed Pride flags from the game’s New York City. That mod would later be re-uploaded to the Internet Archive; a good reminder to those claiming these mods are no longer accessible, they are, you just can’t get them from one specific site anymore.
At the time, Nexus Mods had this to say in a blog post explaining why it had deleted the Spider-Man mod from its site: “We are for inclusivity, we are for diversity. If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it.”
